Posts Tagged ‘DVDs’

24 June to 9 July is the London Pride Festival. We’ve posted on our Virtual Learning Environment the listing of events running around the capital during the festival. Some are ticketed and priced whereas others are free. The festival culminates in the Pride Parade on Saturday 8 July which starts north of Oxford Circus at 1300 and ends in Whitehall around 1630. There is music in Trafalgar Square after the event.

if you miss the parade or you would like to celebrate further then Sunday 9 July offers Pride in the Park organised with UK Black Pride in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. This event includes a dog show, baking competition, stalls, music, speakers and a chance to drag up in the drag booth. Discover the stage running order on the Pride in the Park Schedule.

The National Theatre are doing a number of reading sessions to map in with the festival. Details here on their tweet.

Channel 4 has launched a season of programmes to mark 50 years since the 1967 Sexual Offences Act (decriminalising sex between men in private over the age of 21) called 50 Shades of Gay. Take a look at the YouTube trailer. The season started with Britain’s Great Gay Buildings which you can catch up with on 4oD. Watch Monday 3 July 50 Shades of Gay at 2200 where the actor Rupert Everett looks at how the 1967 Act changed gay life in England and Wales. If you missed Britain’s Great Gay Buildings you can catch up on All 4. All 4 has also brought together the best of their LGBT programmes and films for to watch at your leisure in their Pride Collection.

February is Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans (LGBT) History Month. This year marks 50 years since the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which partly decriminalised homosexuality in men. This had an impact on all of the LGBT community around the world.

Both films were nominated for Oscars last year; Eddie Redmayne (Actor in a Leading Role) with Alicia Vikander (Actress in a Supporting Role) and Cate Blanchett (Actress in a Leading Role) with Rooney Mara (Actress in a Supporting Role). Alicia Vikander won Actress in a Supporting Role. This year’s Oscar nominees include Moonlight which is up for Best Picture and Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris for Actor in a Supporting Role. Find out more about Moonlight on the official website.

If you didn’t catch Desert Island Discs on 10 Feb you can listen to Rugby Union referee Nigel Owens talking movingly about his sexuality and how he came out in 2007 on the BBC iPlayer.

Why not curl up somewhere warm during this cold weather and dip into one or two of our new DVDs.

Here is the latest selection added to our catalogue.

The lady in the van is a comedy featuring Maggie Smith who plays an unpleasant vagrant who pulls up on to a driveway in her clapped out van, and stays put for 15 years!

Gone girl features Ben Affleck as a husband who is subjected to the psychological uncovering of his wife’s disappearance.

The book thief is a historical film set in 1930s Germany. A young girl steals books and shares them with others as her adoptive parents are hiding a Jewish refugee.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a fast action sci-fi movie. It is set in the future in a remote area of the planet where humanity has collapsed. The couple central to the movie (Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron) aim to bring hope to desperate people trying to hold on to the necessities of life.

When you watch either of these films the theme always brings you back to being at home for Christmas which is where the latest in the series of A Very Short Introduction by Oxford University Press comes in. This new one is entitled Home by Michael Allen Fox and looks at how we define home – not just the place or dwelling itself – but also how it’s meaning has changed over time. In addition it encompasses our identity, homelessness and migration. An interesting one to mull over at Christmas…

Our students read Rhys’s novel in tandem with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Take a look at our 24 February blog post for more links on Jane Eyre material to match. Plus as this year marks the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth there is the BBC programme Being the Brontës which was broadcast over Easter which you can rewind on the BBC iPlayer.

This Monday was International Women’s Day. We celebrate women’s achievements every day at Hillcroft College but this is an annual occasion when we can highlight women who inspire us and draw attention to gender inequalities. Names that have been put forward this week for special mention are: Anne Frank, Mary Wollstonecraft and Hildegard of Bingen. The Open University have created an interactive map showing world-changing women because women are not as visible in history. In the LRC are resources that give voices to women whose lives are remarkable in ways that wouldn’t normally make the history books or be given screen time.

Here are our top 5 resources for finding out more about women’s experiences and strength against opposition and/or oppression:

On 23 November there was an article in The Guardian Benedict Cumberpatch taking on the satirical role of androgenous model All in the film Zoolander 2. This has resulted in many people boycotting the film as being transphobic based on the trailer.

If you’d like to explore more about trans/gender issues here is a taster from our selection of DVDs and books: